Psalm 1: 1
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.
This is a progression: Walk, stand, sit.
When I am walking in, listening to, the advice of those who don't know God; then I will find myself standing, pausing, in the path of the ways of this World as opposed to the ways of God; which will lead to sitting, not moving, in a rut, of scoffing and ridiculing God's ways as foolish (I Corinthians 1:18).
God's ways seem to be foolish, reckless and foolhardy to those who are deceived by all the glitter of the World. It doesn't make sense to them for Someone Who holds all power to not lord it over His inferiors.
God's ways are not our ways, nor are our thought processes God's thought processes (Isaiah 55:8-9). His thoughts for us are compassionate, affectionate, true, and perfect. He wants the very best for us, even costing Him His most precious.
But His justice is also perfect, and must be satisfied. That's why He sent His Son to be one of us, to satisfy His just wrath that we deserve on our behalf. Now that God has put our sinfulness on Jesus' side of the Ledger, He can balance the books by putting Jesus' righteousness on our side of the Ledger (II Corinthians 5:21). (Didn't know that God was a Bookkeeper, did you?)
Now each person who recognizes Who Jesus is, and has realized that they deserve to die, and that Jesus took their death for them on His Cross, as though they were the only one, and rose again from the dead to Life; then God places their sins on Jesus and Jesus' righteousness on them.
This is the experience I had when God showed me Jesus on the Cross. I knew He didn't deserve it, because I did, all of it. I knew He took my place there in that suffering and death, and it broke my heart that God loved me that much! That's when everything changed for me, and my life gained dimensions it never had before; because His Holy Spirit came into my spirit, giving me a whole new Life, in addition to the human life I was born with. I had been born again, spiritually.
Now I am able to do things in the power of His Spirit that He can accept and reward, not polluted with that "original sin," the sin-nature we all inherit from Adam (Isaiah 64:6).
I want to be careful to not be duped by any of this World's theories that are in conflict with God's ways, so I need to know His ways. To recognize a counterfeit, one needs to study the genuine article, as Treasury officials study the Dollar so they can recognize any counterfeit. Anything that deviates from the Real shows it to be Artificial. So I study God's Word, the Genuine Article, so I can recognize whatever is not True. Our enemy is very devious, and often wraps his deceptions in a veneer of Truth.
Dear reader, be careful to not be fooled by what looks good. Our enemy is out there, courting us, sweet-talking us away from God's Truth.
You must know the real so you can recognize the imitation. Don't be suckered into accepting any of his deceptions. Our enemy only wants to kill, steal and destroy. Jesus came to give us Life, and that Abundantly.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
